i think this topic is being discussed in P, but is it worth discussing here as well?

it's an interesting topic to me. i don't hold particularly strong opinions, outside of believing that if guns could be completely eradicated, that would be nice and the other observation that if guns are criminalized only criminals will have guns.

i have two close friends who own assault rifles. one of them is completely apolitical, the other hard leftist. neither one of them talk about politics when they show me their guns. and i don't think either one of them has fired their rifles in years.

as i'm typing this i realize that there is no good reason for these two guys to own assault rifles, is there?

lol, just try to come to Texas and take people's guns away. People like guns, people do useful things with guns, and guns come in handy. It's a done deal at this point. "Assault rifles", yeah that makes them sound scary I guess. They're just guns.

that's a fascinating prospect to me. what happens if the government outlaws a bunch of different types of guns? how do they deal with texas?

It could get ugly. We love our guns down here. It would be like taking away people's beloved doggies and kitty cats up east.

It's in the Constitution and it would take an effort that seems unachievable at this point. I'd say if government could actually pull it off a civil war would start.

We have guns, lots of them, and they are never going away, so we should forget about getting rid of them, that's just not going to happen. Sam Harris does a good rundown on the gun situation and how the liberal position on it is essentially absurd.

Banning assault rifles will do nothing. Handguns are the problem, and they aren't going away.

Guns are almost as beautiful and useful has an 18-year old hottie on the cheerleading squad. It is what makes The USA the USA. **** the euro trash namby-pambies' and their socialistic parasite save-the-world ideals. There be dragons on that path.

The main problem is one of definitions, as Plato the boy ****er and Wittgenstein the super brain pointed out. You can define an "assault weapon" as anything you want it to be*. See the problem?

* It doesn't even have to be a gun (rifle or pistol).

I am in favor of stricter gun laws than are currently on the books federally and in many states.

That said, I think that the extremist views from anti-gun zealots is counter-productive towards this country moving forward with stricter gun control, so it kind of frustrates me to see those views being espoused by those that are technically on 'my side' of the debate.

Bernie's views aligned pretty closely with my own, and can be read here and elsewhere.

Just got back from a trip in Japan, a country of 127 million people, and only 6 gun deaths in 2014.

I don't really see much point in discussing the topic outside of where it interferes with others' constitutional rights, namely peaceful assembly. Its in the Constitution and not going anywhere. We have a right to peacefully assemble so clearly Klansmen do not have the right to hang out with their AK47s nearby.

I think it gets tricky on the 'well regulated militia' part (should you be allowed to own a tank?) but lets be real an AK47 is not going to protect you from the military in any real sense and is not totally absurd for personal defense. As long as the rest of it is interpreted to allow personal ownership, 'non-military' 'assault' weapons are clearly legal to me. Maybe those two sound contradictory, but the line has to be drawn somewhere and where ever that line is, people will make products right along it.

I don't see any problems with banning them from airports or making laws about how they have to be transported (ammo separate) but I don't think they should be able to totally ban handguns in DC for example.

I'm glad someone mentioned Sam Harris's position on guns—he seems spot on, as usual. You can search for the video on YouTube, although it's pretty long. I'll do him an injustice summarizing his views, and I listened to that podcast months ago, but one of the points he made that I feel seldom comes up in these discussions is that if you're old or a typical woman or otherwise feeble and you have no gun, you're just screwed if someone breaks into your house or assaults you somewhere. Without weapons, and especially guns, the playing field for bodily crime is so uneven that the young and strong can totally tyrannize the old and weak. You'll be long dead by the time police arrive if your attacker wants to kill you. Societies can get away with this in places like northern Europe and Japan where people are homogeneous and civilized toward one another, but the U.S. is too full of scumbags to let the most powerful and aggressive go unchecked. That's just one pro-gun point to those who would wave a magic wand and make all guns disappear.

Japan is a distinct society: ethnically, culturally and religiously, historically, and has a different constitution and form of government from the USA. It is disingenuous at best to compare Japan with the USA on the issue of guns and violence. Or most other things for that matter. The veneer of western style democratic government and economics are present but the Japanese and much of Asia in general are very much like a different planet from our western cultural traditions. And I speak from not just personal experience in this respect. I am disappointed in you OriP, this is something I would expect in the regular P forum, from bad critical thinkers, but not from you.

cia.the-world-factbook


The violence that is inherent in American cultural is a multifaceted issue. Comparisons to other countries is apples to oranges. It is in no way useful in relation to a discussion/debate on American gun laws and application of same to the general population of this country.


You may "wish" America was more like Japan (or Europe) - but it is nothing more than a Chimera.

"No ways useful" is quite a foolish statement. Yes, there are cultural differences, but Americans are still human, right? Guns work the same on any continent, no? Saying that it's out of bounds to compare two countries because they are different countries is nonsensical. Should we never compare two countries at all, then? Why does gun violence seem to be the only subject that is deemed verboten for international comparison?

This attitude is even stranger considering that having more guns available could logically lead to more murders/violence. It's not like anyone is arguing that carrot consumption diminishes flag pole purchases--we have a clear mechanism for cause and effect here: if Jimmy gets really mad at Bob and has a gun, Bob is more likely to be killed than if Jimmy had no gun at all.

And then, the literature seems to back up the idea that more guns=more violence, even when controlling for different factors. Even when looking only at the different states of the US (one hopes they are similar enough).

Copying my post from the moderation thread:

No, there is no reason other than kicks that someone needs an assault rifle, however you define it.

I think there is room for lots of regulation on firearms while remaining consistent with the 2A and get around the definition problem with Assault Rifles. Things along the lines of no pistol grips on shotguns. No semi-automatic rifles or pistols combine this with aggressive gun buy backs and amnesty programs and we could make movement in the right direction.

Please show some data that would support this view.

LOL, gun proponents won't allow less strict controls than this in place because NRA so there are no stats on it other than logic. If it's harder to get automatic and semi-automatic weapons and fewer weapons exist in the wild eventually there will be fewer mass murders using automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

Please show absolutely any shred of evidence that would justify this line of thinking. Or are you going by feels?

Don't get played by the culture wars Zeno. The Japanese history with banning guns (and swords) is very relevant philosophically to these discussions. Oda Nobunaga and the other unifiers defeated their enemies in part through a superior use of firearms, then banned most public or private use of firearms for almost three hundred years. Okay. Except, this was done by a central military aristocracy in order to prevent rural lords and peasants from revolting against the central feudal order. Much like why they banned Christianity as well. What better historical analogy can American Republicans use?

Im from the UK and always thought gun free was the way to be. After sandy hook my thoughts changed and i think you guys should do everything you can to resist any changes to gun laws

I don't understand how these arguments can be made. A country like Japan is very homogeneous, so them all getting on the "same page" is completely different from a country like ours. The US is a very large, spread out, diverse country with countless different groups of people and wildly different values between those groups. That's why these comparison to other countries are, in many ways, absurd.

For example, Korea has the fastest internet speeds in the world, but one only has to look at a map to understand why the US would lag behind them, as they could lay fiber networks in almost laughably small areas and achieve that goal. It would be absurd to say something like "How come the US can't have internet speeds like Korea?", just as it would about something like gun laws.

Our diversity is a strength AND a challenge. As Americans, we tend to forget the latter.

Market self-regulates my friends, does with guns as well.

Peace of mind isn't a good reason?

This only makes logical sense if you hate children.

This only makes sense if you don't know how logic works.

I think I love you...would you stay awhile please?

Hellfires, BunkerBusters, Drones & Well Armed/Armored Tactical Extraction Teams?

I have always enjoyed the abundance of ignorance/false confidence that is the Patriotic cry..."from my cold dead hands"

Unfortunately, our guns are and forever will be for defense from each other. Our tinker toys are no match for military... even the 50 cals, man

Edit:

Lol Shady Hook..duped much? Dont feel bad, seems the majority of folks were...even the smarts